Paul Tanaka is found guilty of corruption charges

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Paul Tanaka leaves the federal courthouse in Los Angeles on Wednesday, April 6, 2016. He was convicted on charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Tanaka, the mayor of Gardena, is the former second-in-command of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka avoids media Wednesday, April 6, 2016, as he leaves the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles after being found guilty of corruption charges. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz/Pasadena Star-News)

Paul Tanaka, the former second-in-command of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, was found guilty of conspiracy and obstruction of justice in a jail abuse and corruption scandal Wednesday by a federal jury in Los Angeles that deliberated just two hours.

“Today another jury has spoken,” U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker said outside the courthouse. “They’ve spoken loudly, they’ve spoken swiftly and they have sent a very clear message that corruption within law enforcement is something that will not be tolerated, particularly when it comes from the very top of those organizations.”

The jury convicted Tanaka of one count each of conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice. He faces up to 15 years in federal prison when he is sentenced June 20 by Judge Percy Anderson.

Tanaka, 57, appeared emotionless as the verdict was read in U.S. District Court, while his wife wept quietly.

He joins nine other Sheriff’s Department officials, including former Sheriff Lee Baca, who have pleaded guilty or been convicted in the corruption scheme to thwart a federal investigation into civil rights violations in county jails.

Tanaka and the others learned of the investigation once they discovered a cellphone smuggled into the Men’s Central Jail was used to call the FBI’s civil rights division office. Prosecutors said deputies hid an inmate from the FBI, tampered with witnesses by telling deputies not to cooperate with federal investigators and threatened to arrest an FBI special agent.

Tanaka, who testified in his own defense during his 10-day trial, said he did not recall many of the events surrounding the case. His attorneys argued that Tanaka was taking what he thought were lawful orders from Baca and pointed to Baca as the mastermind.

An alternate juror said in an interview Wednesday that he did not believe Tanaka couldn’t recall the events surrounding the case.

“I don’t know how that is possible,” Al Shaheen said. “He did not come across as credible.”

Shaheen said the defense team did not make nearly as convincing a case as the prosecution.

Tanaka is the highest-ranking Sheriff’s Department official to go to trial. He was indicted in May along with a former captain who pleaded guilty to lying on the witness stand.

Jerome Haig, one of Tanaka’s attorneys, told reporters they were disappointed with the verdict but not angry.

“When we first took this case, we thought that the charges did not merit even a filing,” Haig said. “We continue to think that Mr. Tanaka is innocent.

“Certainly, Leroy Baca was a glaring presence, but not a presence inside the courtroom, and we would have been happy to have had him come in and testify, and I think the jury would have liked to have heard him as well,” Haig added.

The judge denied the defense’s request to compel Baca to testify and grant him immunity. The defense also tried to admit some of Baca’s statements to investigators into evidence, a request the judge also denied.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Fox called two dozen witnesses to testify against Tanaka. Many were former Sheriff’s Department employees. He showed the jury dozens of emails, Sheriff’s Department memos, summaries of phone records and played audio and video recordings, including surveillance footage of two sergeants confronting and threatening an FBI special agent at her home.

Fox said the scheme was dubbed Operation Pandora’s Box because if the allegations of deputy abuse and corruption were revealed through the investigation, Pandora’s Box would be opened and the “evils” that were going on inside the jail would be revealed.

Several retired Sheriff’s Department officials testified that they warned Tanaka years ago about problems with deputies using excessive force inside the jails. Some testified that they were soon transferred from their positions once they crossed Tanaka, who was depicted by some witnesses as irate and making disparaging remarks about the FBI.

Tanaka’s attorney, H. Dean Steward, told the jury during closing arguments that some prosecution witnesses were “Caucasians” who “seemed angry” and that they were jealous of Tanaka’s rise through the ranks.

Fox said the case had nothing to do with race.

Tanaka took the stand for nearly two days in his own defense.

Under questioning from his attorney, he denied his involvement and said he held himself and the deputies he supervised to a high code of conduct.

During the prosecution’s cross-examination, Tanaka admitted he has a tattoo associated with a deputy gang that a federal judge called a “neo-Nazi, white supremacist gang.”

Tanaka said the tattoo of a Viking merely represented the mascot of the Lynwood patrol station where he worked when deputies played intramural sports.

One witness, former Deputy Mickey Manzo, was convicted as a co-conspirator in the case. Manzo said Baca gave orders and said that deputies were instructed that “everything that came out of the investigation would be run through Mr. Tanaka.”

Fox played jurors a recording of a phone call that an FBI supervisor made to one of the sergeants who approached FBI Special Agent Leah Marx outside her home.

The supervisor asked what the charges were against Marx.

“You’re going to have to speak to the undersheriff and that’s Paul Tanaka,” Sgt. Maricela Long told Marx’s supervisor, according to the audio recording of the call.

Anderson has overseen all of the trials of deputies convicted in the corruption scheme. In 2014, Anderson sentenced two lieutenants, two sergeants and three deputies to federal prison terms ranging from 18 months to 3 1/2 years. The defendants have appealed their sentences.

Tanaka, who has been the mayor of Gardena since 2005, ran for sheriff in 2014. Sheriff Jim McDonnell, then the Long Beach police chief, handily defeated Tanaka, who all but abandoned his campaign.

Sarah Favot is an award-winning Los Angeles-based freelance writer. Most recently she was a data and investigative reporter at L.A. School Report, a non-profit education news website. Prior to that she was a staff writer for the L.A. Daily News covering county government. She is Vice President of the Los Angeles Chapter of The Society of Professional Journalists.